There are times in life when you are walking uphill, lugging the unresolved baggage of your past. It’s hard to see clearly what is behind you and what issues you are carry inside, not to mention how to resolve them. Although you may feel the profound emptiness of not forgiving yourself, you still just can’t let go.

Until you stop, drop that bag, open it up, and face the pain and struggle that is part of your journey, you will continue to repeat the negative patterns that feed the hurt and anger inside, and that disconnect you from yourself and others.

Put down that bag, take a deep breath and let’s get started. Resentment is what keeps you stuck in reliving over and over again past injustices, regrets, and failures. They burden your soul, pollute your emotions and end up in your body as stress, disease, and heartache. Forgiveness is the means to letting go of pain and resentment.

It is time to open to the understanding that pain and suffering are your teachers, and they are here to help you learn forgiveness, humility, self-respect, and self-empowerment. Perhaps most importantly, forgiveness helps you live from your heart – not your head – and that is a key to letting go of the headaches and the heartaches that leave you feeling unworthy and unloved.

The way of the heart is the way of forgiveness, and with forgiveness, you can change your life and thrive.

Let’s explore what I call the “9 Fundamentals of Forgiveness.”

1. CULTIVATE COMPASSIONStarting with yourself, whole heartedly embrace compassion, and then work towards compassion for others. Compassion nourishes your soul and fills your heart with gratitude. Forgiveness is an empowering act of love and a magnanimous expression of your spirit.

2. LET GOCommit to letting go of your past, and detaching from pain and sorrow, you tap into the magic of renewal. This is key to releasing sadness. It removes you from conflict, and lets you focus upon the pursuit of greater happiness.

3. CHOOSE Choose forgiveness. It is a clear conscious choice that demonstrates your determination to right any wrong, and bring about reconciliation, peace, and harmony. Every action has and equal opposite reaction. So whatever you forgive in others, you also forgive in yourself.

4. ACCEPT If you don’t practice forgiveness, you never have self-acceptance. When you judge or condemn others, you are sentencing yourself to experience what you out.What goes around comes around. This corrupts the integrity of your soul and dims the light of your spirit. Instead, strive to accept yourself with all you heart. That diminishes inner turmoil and allows you to lighten up xxx and your soul and spirit.

5. LOVE Forgiveness is the expression of unconditional love. Love does not blame or find fault. Love does not reject, judge, condemn, compete, divide, or seek retribution. Love reaches out in the face of injury to understand, resolve, and become whole again.

6. BE WILLING Be willing to release your fears. When you let go of fear, you leave space for forgiveness to move in which lifts the burdens, dissolves fear and guilt, washes away shame, neutralizes bitterness, and tears down the walls of pride and ego.

7. HEALForgiveness soothes the hurts of the past in your emotional body and helps you reach down in to hold peace of mind. Forgiveness heals old wounds, severs karmic ties, and can heal past trauma and pain.

8. BE LIBERATED

When you forgive the things you perceive as injustices in your life, you are set free to soar to greater spiritual heights. “To err is Human, to forgive, Divine” is true, and also incredibly liberating.

9. BE PEACEFULPeace helps you to be content with yourself. Peace fosters love and they are the pillars of wisdom. So let your heart be present every step of the way on the journey home to the magnificence of you.

One way to get started on your path to forgiveness is to use a guided meditation to awaken and unfold your heart’s love and compassion.